Why Public Education Matters
David’s post about the Mon Tiki’s Floating Classroom Project is the kind of education-related stuff that I love to read about. There is so much written these days about the battle to save schools that people miss the fact that world-class educators are running successful programs all over the country, completely outside the walls of traditional school buildings. What I am talking about specifically are public education programs.
We all remember field trips when we were kids. If we were lucky a few of them touched us in memorable ways. For me it was a visit to Fort Boonesborough State Park here in Kentucky. That was when my love of history began to develop. It culminated with a short, but wonderful career as an archaeologist where I was introduced to the field of public education.
I was lucky in that my mentor was a disciple of Mark Leone and Paul Shackel, two of the most respected public archaeologists in the United States. Leone is the founder of the Archaeology in Annapolis project which revolutionized the way that archaeology was presented to the public. The idea was to make archaeology accessible to the average citizen. To involve the public and create stewards for Annapolis’ past. Thirty-two years later the program is a model for many others around the country including the program that I worked with during my time in the field. From the program’s website:
Over the years, Archaeology in Annapolis has run an annual field school in urban archaeology and has excavated over forty sites throughout the city’s historic district. Archaeology in Annapolis has continually structured these series of annual excavations around forms of public archaeology, through public tours of archaeological sites or interpretive exhibits that showcase archaeological excavations. We have attempted to promote an inclusive form of Annapolis’ history.
Like many other fields of research, archaeology has the potential for inter-disciplinary collaborations when undertaken thoughtfully. This dovetails perfectly with the goals of many modern educators who want to get the most bang for their buck when they take kids out of the classroom. If a teacher is convinced their kids will not just get a lesson in archaeology, but also lessons in math, history, technology and sociology, they will be much more willing to visit a site.
Paul Shackel is the leading voice for public archaeology in the United States. His book, Places in Mind: Public Archaeology as Applied Anthropology is required reading for all historical archaeology programs. Shackel’s vision is to use public archaeology to engage communities in discovering their own heritage. This is particularly true with under-represented minority communities. In the South this often means the study of formal slave sites (this was the specialty of the group I worked for). In other areas of the country American Indian populations are consulted often on projects which will appeal to their communities.
While archaeology holds a special place in my heart, the opportunity for public education extends into many other fields. As David is demonstrating with his program, students can be taken out of the classroom to engage in biology lessons, chemistry, physics, etc. The most important aspect of this approach is that it creates educators out of professionals that would not normally be charged with teaching children. In my experience the collaboration between teachers and public educators can be extremely rewarding. We spent a lot of time persuading them to trust us with their students and in almost every case the outcome was positive.
A big issue for me has always been the reality that teachers must be jack-of-all trades and too often they are teaching subjects outside their core expertise. This is not to take anything away from their abilities, but many academics and professionals have specific experience and knowledge that can benefit students greatly. These public education programs are an opportunity to do just that. That is why nearly every museum, historic site, and place of interest in the U.S. either has an established public education program or is working to get one off the ground. The truth is that people who are passionate about something want to share that passion. Public education is an excellent way to do that and accomplish something important in the process.
Additional reading:
Toward a Critical Archaeology; Mark Leone, Paul Shackel, Parker B. Potter.
Public Archaeology in Annapolis: A Critical Approach to History in Maryland’s Ancient City; Parker B. Potter
A Study of Archaeology; Walter Taylor
A JPL scientist whose name I won’t mention because it might embarrass him does advanced Math schooling at our kids’ public school and he’s awesome at teaching the kids. We have a few Caltech people that help teach science classes (including my wife). We have a guy who runs his own groundskeeping business that tends the school garden, an Audubon society member that teaches science lessons about birds, another JPL guy that does robotics and volunteer science teaching, an artist who gets the kids to paint murals on campus, the list goes on.
The more people put into public schools, the more the kids get out of ’em.Report
I love volunteering at schools for science & math education! I wish I had more time to do it (toddlers eat up soOoOoOo much time…). At least I still get to participate in FIRST.Report
I have very fond memories of field trips out to Barn Island, Project O, Sturbridge Village and others.
Those natural science trips I took are a large part of why I went to college in my chosen fields. My teachers during my junior high and high school years were wonderful, inspiring people to whom I still am indebted.Report
Good post, Mike. The opportunities for education are just about everywhere, and (assuming we don’t kill a their sense of curiosity), most children are interested to learn about a lot of different things. The education system would be well-served if it could incorporate some of these opportunities into their standard offerings (much as Patrick describes).Report
Mike,
It seems as if you are using the term “public education” in a different way than we typically do. Your excerpt juxtaposes “public education” and the “traditional classroom”, though for many people, the traditional classroom is public education.
Can you expand on how you are using that phrase?
Thanks.Report
@Kazzy I’ve been busy and haven’t been around. You asked me what I thought the role of public education was in a thread that has its comments closed. I didn’t mean to ignore you.
In the context of that conversation and knowing what you do for a living, I’d answer that kids should have the ability to maximize their potential. It’s a pretty milk toast answer but it’s a huge question just for little ones.
When I was initially thinking about the proper role for public education my mind exploded. Who for? Preschool? knitting for grandmothers at a community center? legal education for inmates? MOOTS for adults? It was just too big and messy of a question. Today it seems that education is more important and diversified in its benefits than at any other time. It’s also a time when the internet is changing things faster than Gutenberg. I’m not smart enough to see the end picture or ultimate answer to a broader reading of your question.Report
@cascadian
No worries. When I asked the question, I was speaking specifically of public K-12 education, but there is certainly room to consider other pieces of it, and to even wonder if public K-12 education should be what we default to when thinking about “public education”.
But I ask because so many people want to say, “This is what we need to do to fix education?” Which leads me to ask the questions you posited here: For whom are we fixing it? For what?
I am very, very purpose driven. Identify a goal or set of goals. Identify a path to achieve those goals. Start down the path. Evaluate as you go whether the decisions you make are getting you closer or further from your goals. Rinse. Repeat.
I will say that the number of educators who have no purpose, no goals, no why to the what of their work… eash.
One more anecdote: I sometimes have colleagues come up and say, “What do you think of this lesson?”
“It depends.”
“On what.”
“Well, what is your objective?”
“Um… I dunno. It’s a math lesson. And I think it is cool!”
“‘Cool’ is not a learning objective. Is your focus on multiplying fractions? Or reducing them?”
“Both, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Yea. I mean, it just seems like a great lesson. The guy next door did something similar so I had this idea.”
[sigh]Report
@kazzy Don’t your colleagues have degrees with some component regarding how to educate youngins’? They anecdotes you relate sometimes make me wonder if you are working with people who have degrees in $SUBJECT_MATTER, but no training in being a teacher.Report
Heh. Well… it depends…
Some folks do not have degrees in education. A number of our assistants are career-changers. This isn’t uncommon in independent schools. Most, if not all, are working towards degrees in education. The more experienced ones have taken on larger roles in the classroom, but still lack some critical skills.
A number of other teachers, especially as you move into the upper grades, do indeed have degrees in their respective content areas, but not necessary in education. This boggles my mind. Mastery of the content area is important, but so is pedagogy.
But teacher education programs are also largely to blame. I went to one of the top graduate schools for education in the country. Even there, my curriculum development class had a number of people who thought a cobbling together of potentially good lessons/activities constituted a “curriculum”. Terms like “scaffold” or “sequencing” were unfamiliar to them, even after completion of the course.
I do think some of this is a larger human failing. How many people take “health advice” without first setting goals? Retirement advice? Career advice? How many people even have articulated goals for themselves in any area?Report
@kazzy Suddenly, I want to home school my kid…Report
@mad-rocket-scientist
It is one reason why my opposition to increasingly standardized education in our public systems is, at most, soft. Standardization removes control from classroom teachers. I, personally, balk at this because I feel capable of properly exercising that control. I’m far from perfect, but I think I’ve got a pretty good batting average. But a lot of teachers can’t properly exercise this control. So decisions are made on their behalf by more talented/knowledgeable people. It is far from a perfect system. But given that we can’t or won’t address teacher standards from the bottom up, we have to look for top-down solutions. Unfortunately, this becomes self-perpetuating.
I realize I am pointing with broader strokes. There are a great many talented teachers, in both the public and private sector. Most are at least competent. Most public schools do a decent enough job.
I see behind the curtain so I know how the sausage is made. But, hey, sausage still tastes good. Given what you bring to the table as a parent, I’m pretty confident your kids will turn out well.Report
@mad-rocket-scientist : I home schooled my youngest, the boy. Most people don’t realise how home schooling doesn’t just take the kid out of a bad system but also puts the parent into the role of teacher. Not an easy job.
Lot of mickey-mouse stuff to do. Be prepared to do a LOT of grading homework, writing lesson plans, making sure the material gets covered. Add another two, maybe three hours to your working day. It’s really no different than what a teacher does, anyway.
My son had some specific issues: he’d been in a gifted program which didn’t continue into high school. He was self-motivated, which most kids aren’t. But it wasn’t easy working with him. It’s hard to plan anything, harder to do what a teacher’s learned over the years. My wife was a teacher but she had baskets full of her own kids’ work to grade, her own lesson plans to write. I ended up doing most of my son’s pedagogy and truth is, I wasn’t nearly as good at it as I though I’d be.Report
I’m not familiar with what’s available in the States these days. We used to use a homeschooling center for help with curriculum and science classes when we were in Seattle. In Canuckistan, we have distance learning. The curriculum is all laid out. Kid get’s a couple boxes of books and lessons each term. We work through this together then email the finished work to a teacher that evaluates and corrects it. It’s a pretty great system.Report
@cascadian
PLEASE tell me that “Canuckistan” is a real place!Report
Oh, Canuckistan is real, all right. The annual migration of the gorbies will soon be under way, as soon as there’s any decent snow pack on the slopes of Canuckistan.Report
@kazzy Of course Canuckistan is a real place. As is the Province of Lotus Land. ; )Report
@kazzy @blaisep
I’m not seriously considering homeschooling The Bug, although my wife & I are more than ready to supplement his education should we find areas that are lacking (me being the science & math guy, my wife covering the liberal arts). But the idea that teachers don’t know how to put together a logical curriculum… that worries me.
as to @cascadian comment, WA state has a distance learning program very similar to what he describes, as well as a lot of homeschool support via online resources (provided the parents do not think the internet is an evil place and refuse to go there – my wife ran across such people when she worked as a public librarian, folks wanting her to get the information for them & then print it all out for them).Report
@mad-rocket-scientist
My new assistant is an aspiring teacher currently working on her masters. She brings lots of ideas and energy to the classroom, which is great. But I constantly have to ask her “Why?” when she pitches an idea. But she’s young. And, hopefully, will learn.
And I should say that not ALL teachers can’t put together a logical curriculum. But there is no doubt a significant subset who can’t. They may be over-represented in the private system since, despite much marketing to the contrary, we technically have no hard standards for employment.Report
But the idea that teachers don’t know how to put together a logical curriculum… that worries me. Teachers do know how to assemble a logical curriculum. But that’s not how things work out in practice, unless you’re in a private school or some other situation where teachers have some authority — or they’re shielded by competent school administrations and that has to go up to district level as well.
All these wonderful teachers we read about every so often, you know, the superstar teachers who produce such remarkable results? See above paragraph for why they even exist at all.Report
Kazzy,
I guess I would call that ‘public school education.
I view public education as anything going on outside the classroom. It’s geared toward the public and not just to students. When I was an archaeologist we called the academic side of this ‘public archaeology’.
The problem I probably made by writing this post way too fast was in not being clear that there are two goals here:
– Educate adults to create cheerleaders for your work
– Provide curriculum-specific instruction for students on field trips.Report
Thanks, Mike. I like that thinking. I think you might be interested to read some of the early advocates of progressive education, particularly John Dewey.
Disclaimer #1: Progressive education as it was envisioned in the early part of the 20th century and progressive education as it is largely practiced now are two different beasts. So, if you have your misgivings about the current practice, please do not let it bleed into your study of the former.
Disclaimer #2: I have come to understand that Dewey was also part of the broader progressive political movement at the time. I know very little of this and will say that I didn’t read very much overt politics in his educational writing. So, if you have your misgivings about the progressive political movement of the time, please do not let it bleed into your study of the parallel educational movement.
Dewey’s seminal work is aptly named “Experience and Education”. Wikipedia offers a pretty solid summary that might wet your appetite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_and_Education_(book)
In my own teaching, I often get looks from parents when they ask about field trips and I say, “We’ll have to see where our curriculum takes us.” I do think there is value in young children doing something fun for fun’s sake, but I don’t think that field trips should be seen as a break from learning. Rather, it is a unique opportunity to enhance it. So a few years ago, when my kids wanted to build their own airport in our dramatic play area, we visited a local airport. We got to tour the hangar, drive down the runway, interact with various professionals… it was amazing. Some parents would have rather we simply gone to a zoo and looked at animals (which no doubt can be a valuable experience), but after that trip, these kids literally built an airplane and airport out of cardboard and other materials. It was an amazing experience on so many levels. To me, that is what field trips ought to be about.Report
If only John Dewey was turned loose on the public education system today, what a housecleaning he’d do. Trouble is, I think he’d get into the same quarrels with the educational establishment he did back in his own time, at the Laboratory School.
The signal problem with education, then and now, is how utterly political it’s become. Every two-bit elected official feels obliged to mess with it. Won’t empower teachers in their own classrooms. Won’t apply scientific principles to the problem — especially all these Creationist dunces cropping up everywhere. Won’t view education, especially early childhood education, as the most important investment we can possibly make in our citizenry. Lost in the shuffle are the children themselves.
I often disagree with you, Kazzy, but as a teacher, you are more important than you could possibly know.Report
Dewey had his fingers in a lot of pies. Dewey was also involved in pragmatism, which is in many ways a fundamental shift in focus in philosophy.Report